Baby Mario
2010 UK
National
Seniors
Champion |
Alomomola
(Dragons Exalted)
Alomomola
is one of those rare Pokémon that is actually a lot less
weird than the real life creature that it’s based on.
The Ocean Sunfish (or mola
mola) is the size of a van
and weighs in at an average of 2,200 lbs (thanks,
Wikipedia). The 3’11”, 70lb
Alomomola is tiny by comparison. Can it make a
big impact in the TCG though? (Please excuse that cheesy
link).
What we have here is an unevolving
Water Type Basic with a low-ish
90 HP (the real Ocean Sunfish would probably have
Wailord-style HP levels).
It’s weak to Lightning and has the inconvenient retreat
cost of two (don’t want to pay it, can’t search with
Heavy Ball). So far, so
meh.
Alomomola’s
first attack, Mysterious Beam, costs
one Water and one Energy of any Colour. For that
you get a fairly poor return of 30
damage. You do get a coin flip to discard
an Energy from the Defending
Pokémon though, which can be quite disruptive to the
opponent. However, most decks will be able to shrug off
the minor inconvenience as it is coupled with such a low
level of damage, especially if they have Energy
acceleration, as a lot of decks do these days (Dark
Patch, Eelektrik). Double Slap adds another Colourless
Energy to the cost and has the potential to do more
damage. And yes, when I say ‘potential’, I do mean that
the attack is flippy: you
get to flip two coins and do 50
damage for each heads. Regular readers will know
how much I dislike this kind of attack. Variable damage
means that you cannot plan a strategy for taking Prizes
and you could even end up wasting an entire attack turn.
That kind of thing is a disaster in competitive play and
costs games. With Alomomola,
even if you do get lucky, doing a
vanilla 100 damage for three Energy isn’t
anything spectacular in this format anyway.
Even though playing Alomomola
would give you the chance to entertain your opponent
with fascinating facts about the Ocean Sunfish (its
Chinese name means ‘toppled car fish’), I’m afraid the
card doesn’t really justify that.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (it has a shorter spinal column, relative
to its size, than any other fish)
Limited: 2.25 (sealions
attack them for fun)
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Jebulous Maryland Player |
Alomomola
Alomomola is a Basic Water Pokemon with 90 HP. It
is weak to Lightning and has a retreat cost of 2.
It is searchable by Level ball and is also a palindrome.
'Mysterious Beam' costs 1 Water and 1 Colorless Energy.
It does 30 damage and if you flip heads, you can discard
an energy off the Defending Pokemon. The damage
output isn't that bad, though for 2 energy I would hope
for a little more damage.
'Double Slap' costs 1 Water and 2 Colorless Energy.
You flip 2 coins and it does 50 time the number of
heads. So most of the time you'll do 50.
Right away I can tell I'll never play this card. I
hate the coin flips, so that's pretty much it. As
for everyone else using it, why would you use this
instead of an EX that will have stronger attacks for the
same costs? The most playable basics (HP around 90
and not
EX) will let you attack with 1 energy. Sableye and
Stunfisk come to mind. Terrakion and Zekrom/Reshiram/Kyurem
don't really count since their attacks are ridiculous
compared to high HP Pokemon (not breaking 100).
Plus, how can 'Mysterious Beam' compare to an 'Outrage'
or 'Retaliate'?
If you want to be playable and be a non-evolving Pokemon,
you will need to have good attacks (or abilities).
Modified: 1/5
Limited: 2/5
Combos With: ...
Questions, comments, concerns:
jebulousthemighty@yahoo.com
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